


Capsaicin

by phoenixyfriend



Series: Altea May Have Been Space Australia, But Humans are the Weird Ones [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alcohol, Attempted Poisoning, Bilingual Lance (Voltron), Capsaicin, Cuban Lance (Voltron), Drunk Lance (Voltron), Forced Alcohol Consumption, Gen, Lance is a chilihead pass it on, Poisoning, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-08
Updated: 2017-03-08
Packaged: 2018-10-01 04:57:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10181198
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixyfriend/pseuds/phoenixyfriend
Summary: Lance was captured by the Galra. He was more useful alive than dead, but was notorious for being difficult to interrogate, so the Galra turned to poison.It was... less than successful.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I've never actually been drunk, so... yeah, had to ask a friend for some details. Also, my Spanish is terrible, so there's likely to be a mistake there. _However,_ I am a native bilingual, and Lance's approach to code-switching between English and Spanish to be obnoxious or funny, especially choosing to sing songs that aren't in English, is based off of my own approach to code-switching around my friends who don't speak Serbian.
> 
> This fic was inspired by several tumblr posts about the concept of humans being from Space Australia. Namely, [this one, which mentions capsaicin by name](http://phoenixyfriend.tumblr.com/post/158157844220/gilmoure-therobotmonster-moniquill).

It was Lance who stayed behind in an attempt to shoot out a communications tower that could bring down Galra reinforcements on the base before the team could recover enough to fight them off. It was Lance who actually did shoot it out, saving the team and keeping the Galra not only on-planet but with no way to signal for help. It was Lance who got captured.

It was Lance who needed to be rescued.

“Pidge?” Shiro demanded, pacing the room. It was his fifth time asking in the last fifteen minutes.

“Nothing yet,” she answered, not even complaining about the interruption.

The downed communications tower meant the Galra on-planet couldn’t signal for help, but it also meant that Pidge was having difficulty hacking in remotely. And until the lions recovered from the battle, they couldn’t all just storm the planet either. The Galra didn’t have enough fighters left to take on Voltron, but they did have enough to take on a couple of individual lions and a castle ship with a barrier that only worked some of the time.

“Hurry.”

o.o.o.o.o

“There are… records, of your team’s previous encounters with our interrogators,” the Galra said, standing almost casually at the front of the room, eyes cast downwards towards the paper file in their hands.

Lance, strapped to a chair, said nothing, just raised an eyebrow.

“You, in particular, have been noted to swing between wildly talkative about nothing of use and utterly silent. An interesting plan, the former, but utterly useless. You’ve also proven resistant to out more common torture methods, if only because you speak nonsense instead of actual information.” The Galra snapped the folder closed and looked Lance in the eye. “Impressive.”

“Aw, are you just going to flatter me tonight? Maybe wine and dine a bit? Gotta tell you, I don’t tend to go for buff and trying to kill me. Kind of a turn-off, you know. Not my type.”

The Galra laughed humorlessly. “It would seem the files were correct. Very talkative. I’ve opted to take a different approach. You are aware of the humans we have previously had in our care, yes?”

“Care. That’s a cute word for it.”

“Indeed. Well, two of them were scientists, and particularly susceptible to sharing information when the other was threatened with injury.” The Galra walked over to a black box on the table, looking down and running a hand over it.

“…Charming.”

“Pack bonding seems to be quite common to your species,” the Galra said with a smile. “So very easy to take advantage of.”

“You know what else is easy? Seeing why you have no friends. Like, hot damn, that attitude is _not_ doing you any favors.”

“So many words, so very little meaning.” The Galra tapped fingers against the box. “Now, we managed to find out from the biologist several poisons that affected your species.”

Lance took in a slightly deeper breath than usual, and huffed it out. “You can’t afford to kill me.”

“But we can hurt you. These chemicals are potentially lethal, or at least incredibly toxic, to most species. Yours is apparently capable of resisting higher doses, based on the individual. One causes a severe amount of pain when ingested, and as it passes through one’s system, and the other causes trouble to the brain, leaving you more suggestible, among other things, also with some rather painful aftereffects.” The Galra opened the box, finally, revealing two large glass containers. One was filled with a clear liquid, and the other with reddish, powdery substance. The Galra tapped the latter. “Unfortunately, it appears that this one is most effective when somewhat diluted and eaten over the course of several minutes, so I can’t starve you as much as I’d planned.”

“Wow. I feel so sorry for you. You must have been looking forward to that.”

“Sarcasm, yes? It does you no good, Paladin.”

“I have a name, you know.”

“I do not care.”

o.o.o.o.o

“They’re going to poison him!” Pidge shouted, looking rapidly through the data. “I don’t… fuck, I don’t recognize what the chemicals are, that’s not my area, but apparently this stuff… uh, there’s two. Both are lethal to most species in moderate doses, and either super painful or debilitating in small ones.”

Pidge looked up to pale faces. “They interrogated my dad and brother for stuff like this, so…”

“Maybe they lied,” Shiro muttered.

“Dad might have talked if they threatened Matt, and vice versa. I don’t…” Pidge turned to Coran. “Do you know what this stuff is? I don’t have this sort of info stored away, and… I need to know how much Lance is going to…”

“I doubt the name we use for it is the same as yours,” Coran said, apologetic. “But those substances are known as heavily toxic to almost all species. I would not expect humans to be any different.”

“God…” Pidge breathed, scanning through the files she’d picked up from the weak signal from the planet below. “They tested it on Matt. The pain-focused one… ugh… painful enough to make him cry, at least, uncontrollable sweating and fever, and then aftereffects on the digestive system as it passed through. The other one was as disorienting as expected and had pretty painful aftereffects too. Not too many details, but…”

“As expected,” Coran sighed. “These doses would have been near-lethal to many species.”

“Here, let me see,” Hunk said, making his way over to Pidge’s computer. “I’m better at chem than you, and—wait.”

He peered closer, disbelief etched on his face.

Then he threw back his head and started laughing.

Keith and Pidge both leaned away as Hunk bent over at the waist, clinging to Pidge’s chair with one hand to stay upright.

“Hunk?” Allura asked hesitantly. “What’s wrong?”

“Y-you—they just—I can’t _believe_ —” He trailed off into wordless laughter again, falling to his knees. “And I w-was ac-actually _worried_ f-for a mome _hahahahaha_!”

The paladins and Alteans stared in confused horror.

“He’s lost it,” Keith decided, taking a large step backwards.

“Pidge,” Hunk gasped for breath. “Pidge, your family is so _white_.”

“What?”

o.o.o.o.o

Just a little pain, Lance told himself. Whatever it was, he could handle it.

He didn’t make it easy, of course. He clenched his jaw as the interrogator brought the poison-tainted goo to his mouth, pressed his lips together as they tried to make him drink.

It didn’t work, of course, but it made him feel better.

They fed him the goo, first, pressing in on his cheeks until his mouth opened.

It tasted like chili, or maybe curry. Not even very strong chili, but something he might have enjoyed as a kid, when his moms were still making things as mild as possible for a child’s sensitive palate. He wondered what that meant. He didn’t know anything about poisons, not really. He didn’t know what came across as spicy, other than nutmeg. He didn’t even remember what nutmeg _did_. Diarrhea, maybe? It didn’t smell like nutmeg, though, so he stopped theorizing, and just resigned himself to the force-feeding.

He glared up at the Galra as the plate was cleared off. “That all you got? I don’t even feel anything.”

Purple lips pursed together. “The other human was crying by this point.”

“Other human?”

The Galra waved a hand dismissively. “We tested their claims, of course. Perhaps you are simply more resistant than they were.”

_Of course they did._

“Guess I’m just made of tougher stuff than that,” Lance drawled.

“We’ll see.”

And then came the bottle.

Lance had no idea what to expect, but it felt like nothing at first, and then burned as it slid down his throat. He coughed and spluttered after the bottle was pulled away after just a few mouthfuls.

It felt like heat was spreading out from his mouth and throat and stomach. Like… like…

Wait, he knew that taste.

“Did you just give me _space tequila?”_

o.o.o.o.o

“Hunk, I think we’d all like an explanation right now,” Shiro said, folding his arms over his chest. “What’s so funny about Lance being _poisoned?_ And what does it have to do with Pidge’s family being white?”

“Because _that_ ,” Hunk said, pointing at the screen. “Is only technically a poison, by our standards.”

“…that’s not reassuring, Hunk,” Keith said.

“It’s _capsaicin_ , guys.” Hunk laughed again, and then noticed that no one else was laughing either. “You… don’t know what capsaicin is, do you?”

Heads shook all around.

“…it’s spice. Like, a habanero, a jalapeño, a _ghost pepper_ , table pepper, literally everything spicy? That’s capsaicin.” Hunk pointed at the screen again. “That one on the left is just freaking capsaicin. And yeah, it can cause all the stuff that the Galra recorded when they tested it on Matt, but have you ever seen someone eat food that’s too spicy for them? _That’s exactly what happens to them_.”

“Oh my god,” Shiro whispered, something between horror and delight on his face. “Please tell me you’re joking.”

Pidge looked over the computer again. And again. “That’s… you’re telling me they just gave him spicy food and he claimed it was a poison?”

“I mean, I’m pretty sure he claimed it was a poison first, and then they tested it, but… yeah.”

Pidge buried her face in her hands. “Matt… I don’t know whether that was a genius move or a really fucking stupid one.”

“And all you really need to know here is that Lance once won twenty bucks because someone bet he wouldn’t eat a ghost pepper without crying, and he did it anyway. Actually, he’d have done it just to prove he could; the money was just a bonus. He did the same thing like three weeks later with a Carolina Reaper,” Hunk said. “So he’s probably going to eat enough for them to be convinced he’s some kind of monster.”

“Approximately how much of this chemical is in one of these… peppers?” Coran asked tentatively.

“Uh…” Hunk frowned, “I know this, just gimme a sec. Lance had me look it up after he did it so he could brag that he’d eaten a Carolina Reaper. I remember that it’s like 2.2 million on the Scoville scale, but…”

“The what?”

“Okay, so it was… more than what you’d get in 25 milliliters of police-grade pepper spray, because that’s how much you find in the Trinidad Moruga Scorpion pepper, and police-grade pepper spray is usually about 2% capsaicin, so… a little under a milliliter, maybe?” Hunk frowned. “More than half a milliliter, less than a full one.”

Coran put a hand to his chest. “And he didn’t _die?_ ”

Hunk blinked. “I mean, he had a hell of a bad couple of days on his digestive system, both times, and couldn’t taste anything for a week, again on both occasions, but yeah, he was fine after a bit.”

Allura and Coran stared.

“Is recreational consumption of spicy food really that weird?” Pidge asked, adjusting her glasses. “I mean, not everyone’s a fan, obviously, but it’s pretty common back home?”

“Lance sounds like a bit of an extreme example,” Shiro said, as though it were somehow a consolation.

“He’s a total chilihead,” Hunk confirmed. “He could eat a jalapeño with every meal when he had access and considered it pleasantly tangy.”

“That’s awful,” Pidge declared. “But it does make me feel better about him being supposedly poisoned.”

“I mean, he technically _is_ being poisoned,” Hunk pointed out. “It’s still a toxic substance. We just have a higher tolerance than most species, apparently.”

“So they’re probably just feeding him the equivalent of tabasco sauce or something?” Keith asked. “Or something stronger?”

“Probably weaker than tabasco, honestly. If they’re using Matt as a reference, then they’re probably starting super mild. He’s kind of a baby about this sort of thing,” Pidge said. “So, what I’m getting from all this is that most species have a really low LD50 when it comes to this chemical?”

“Very,” Coran said, still looking a little uncomfortable. “You… poison yourselves simply to prove you can?”

“Nah, not really,” Hunk said, shrugging. “I mean, some people do? People eat stuff that’s too spicy for them all the time, whether it’s for a bet or a dare or just because they’ve gotten hit with way to much toxic masculinity BS. But a lot of people honestly just enjoy the taste, and Lance is one of them. The stuff he eats for fun, because he genuinely enjoys the taste, would make my mouth feel like it’s on fire.”

“… _humans_ ,” Allura said, like she couldn’t believe anything anymore. “Are you going to tell me that the other chemical is used in a similar manner?”

“I mean… people actually die from the other one fairly often, but it doesn’t stop most people?” Hunk offered. “We’re actually pretty resistant to that one, even more than capsaicin, people just go really overboard.”

“Hunk, what’s the other chemical?” Shiro asked carefully. “Because that sounds a lot like—”

“Ethanol.”

“Dammit.” Shiro dropped his head into his hands. “How well can Lance hold his liquor?”

“If his normal personality is at a two, his drunk personality is at a nine.”

“And how many drinks does it take him to get there?”

“More than you’d think, given the size of him. I’ve only seen him actually drunk once. He doesn’t really like the taste much.”

o.o.o.o.o

“Ey, papi, pass me some more of that sweet nectar,” Lance drawled, pressing up against the bars of the cage they’d stuck him in to wait out the poison or whatever. “C’mon, it’s been a while since I got hammered. Share the good stuff, bruh.”

The Galra on guard both looked at each other. “The… poison from earlier?”

“Pfffft, that’s not poison, that’s liquid fucking courage.” Lance let his head loll to the side, smiling as wide as he could. He was barely buzzed, but it didn’t hurt to play up how bad it was. “I don’t know if that was tequila or vodka or whiskey or what, but it was strong and it was _taaaaaaaaasty_.”

It was not tasty, in Lance’s humble opinion, but… well, Coran did say that playing psychological games with one’s captors could turn up all kinds of interesting information. And they’d watered it down enough that Lance would need to drink at least two or three more times before he was even mostly drunk.

“You… you _want_ to be poisoned?” One of the guards asked. “That liquid is known the universe over for being deadly!”

“So? I know my limits. I know when to stop, c’mon dude, y’gotta gimme some.” Lance whined, pouting.

“You’d die,” the Galra told him. “And as much as we may want you dead, you are currently more useful to us alive.”

“But am I as useful to you sober as I am drunk?” Lance asked. “’Cause right now I can still talk shit and give you no real information.”

They ignored him, and Lance made his way back over the metal bed and sat down. He had no idea what the plan was, though apparently they thought that getting him drunk would loosen his tongue.

He let himself slump downwards. They’d probably try poisoning him a little more soon enough. That was… not going to be fun. He still didn’t know what the first one had been, just that it was a little hot. When was the pain meant to kick in?

o.o.o.o.o

“I can’t believe I read all that and didn’t realize that the painful recovery period was referring to a goddamn _hangover,_ ” Pidge complained.

“You people _recreationally_ drink a liquid that has been proven to have horrifying effects on your physical health and on your decision-making skills to the point of being one of the largest direct _and_ indirect causes of death on your planet, which even in the short-term can cause digestive problems leading to vomiting and an incredibly painful experience while recovering in the day following,” Allura said, disbelieving. “ _Why?_ ”

“People think the disorientation is fun, basically,” Shiro offered. “It’s not necessarily a smart choice, but it’s a fairly common one.”

“Some people use it to cope with traumatic experiences,” Pidge offered, eyes on her screen. Now that Lance’s immediate future was guaranteed to be at least somewhat safe, she had a much easier time focusing instead of panicking. “Or for religious observances.”

“It was safer than water for a lot of human history,” Hunk offered. “You didn’t always know if the water from the pond was safe, but the wine had enough ethanol to have killed off dangerous bacteria. Nobody knew that was _why,_ of course, but it did work.”

“Hence pirates having a fondness for grog,” Keith said. He blinked when all eyes turned to him, and explained a little further. “Uh, water mixed with small amounts of alcohol to, uh, kill off the germs and make it safe. Or, sort of, I think it actually started as a way to make stagnant water taste better, since algae grew inside the casks, and alcohol would mask the taste. Started with beer as the drink of choice to dilute, then switched to rum.”

“…Keith, why do you—”

“I really liked those dumb pirate movies as a kid,” Keith said, entirely straight-faced. “And did research for a while. Some of it stuck.”

“A lot of people really do just drink to get drunk,” Pidge said, bringing the conversation back around. “Which, you know, all the power to them or whatever? It’s not necessarily safe, but it takes years to kill you unless you binge and die of alcohol poisoning.”

“You poison yourselves for fun!” Coran insisted.

“Well… yes,” Shiro said, unable to really argue the claim.

Allura and Coran seemed to find this difficult to believe. Nobody really blamed them.

“Man,” Hunk laughed. “I can’t wait to explain mithridatism to you.”

o.o.o.o.o

“I still have no idea what that is,” Lance said, eyeing the red powder, which the Galra all handled like the glass container was as fragile and as important as… as something really breakable and important. Lance didn’t feel like making similes right now. “Like, can you at least tell me what you’re giving me?”

“I believe the other humans named it as…” The Galra flipped through the paper file that had come with the box. “Capsaicin.”

Lance made a face. “That… sounds familiar.”

It did. It really did. He just had to think and…

“Oh my god, are you _kidding me?_ ”

He’d spent all this time worrying, and they were _literally feeding him spicy space goo_.

That was it. That was all.

They’d added flavoring to space goo and called it poison.

What a joke.

“Scared?” The Galra asked, apparently reading his disbelief as fear.

It wouldn’t hurt to play along. Lance schooled his expression, letting it crack just enough to pretend it was false bravado instead of a desire to laugh in all of their faces. “Not at all.”

“Would you like to know the other?” The Galra asked, with a grin full of sharp, deadly teeth.

“Is it ethanol?” Lance asked. “Because that’s my guess.”

A look of shock was his only real answer.

“I mean, don’t get me wrong,” Lance said, making himself as comfortable as he could while strapped to a goddamn chair. “It _is_ going to impair my faculties or whatever. Intoxication does that to a person. It’s just that it’s going to be hella fun, too. Have you ever heard of a keg stand? I bet you’ve never heard of a keg stand.”

They put more capsaicin in his space goo this time. It was almost medium hot. He felt so proud of them, getting to the upper edges of the mild side of curry.

And that was definitely space tequila, and it was definitely disgusting, and they were definitely giving him more this time.

o.o.o.o.o

“ _And we have video!_ ” Pidge crowed, pumping one fist into the air. “Who’s amazing?”

“You are,” Hunk said, patting her on the back. “So, do we have Lance on any of these security feeds?”

“We… should…” Pidge drew out the words, flicking through screens. “And… there he is!”

She blew up the video so everyone could see, and turned on the audio before her eyes even registered _what_ they were seeing.

“—le gusta la gasoline, dame mas gasolina!” Lance sang, dancing around a cell.

“…is he actually hammered or just faking?” Pidge whispered, leaning over towards Hunk.

“I have no idea.”

“Zumbale el mambo pa' q mis gatas prendan los motores,” Lance sang, over and over again, swaying his hips.

“That’s a sign that he’s sober enough, right?” Keith asked. “Like, people can’t talk that fast while dru—”

“Lance can.”

“…oh my god, I can’t believe him.”

o.o.o.o.o

Lance was pretty sure that he was, at minimum, buzzed right now.

“¿Ey, ey, piensas que yo soy un chico hermoso?” He asked, leaning against the bars of the cell. Cage. Whatever. “¿A menos que las personas Galra tengan diferentes estándares de belleza?”

“Do you have any idea what he’s saying?” One of the Galra asked the other, so quiet that Lance almost didn’t hear them.

“No, the translators aren’t picking anything up for some reason,” the second Galra said, eyeing Lance nervously. He gave the two a lazy wave of his fingers, smiling languidly.

They shuddered.

“He should be dead by now,” one of the Galra commented. “How is he not—”

“ _Ladies and gentlemen, this is Mambo Number Five!”_ Lance yelled, pushing himself away from the bars. He started singing as loud as he could, and doing the salsa, and basically anything he could to pretend his level of intoxication was higher than it actually was.

“By Zarkon, the humans are _insane_.”

o.o.o.o.o

“Okay, I _think_ he’s only a little drunk,” Hunk said, peering at the video while Pidge continued trying to hack into the Galra base’s security beyond just the video feed. If she could disable the drones, then getting Lance out would be much easier.

“What makes you say that?” Shiro asked, taking a few steps closer. “He’s being… much louder than a prisoner should be, honestly.”

“He’s sung a perfect rendition of the piña colada song and done the salsa while singing to Mambo Number Five, Livin’ la Vida Loca, Let’s Get Loud, _and_ Mr. Saxobeat by now. Have you seen him mess up his footing even once?” Hunk asked, pointing at the video.

“…point,” Shiro sighed. “So should we assume he’s trying to play his captors, or just that he’s a good dancer even while drunk?”

“Both?” Pidge suggested, still typing furiously. “We know Lance tries to play mind games when he gets captured. It’s his thing.”

“We should probably hurry anyway, though,” Hunk pointed out, watching the screen as the Galra in charge showed up to drag Lance away for yet another round of ‘poisoning.’ “If he’s already kind of drunk, then we don’t want him drinking too much more. The goo is offsetting it a bit, since eating helps, but we don’t want him to _actually_ get alcohol poisoning.”

“Well, good news on that front,” Pidge said with a grin. “Because I just found a way to shut down all the drones at once, and I can wreak enough havoc from here to shut down half the base, and do it with _style_.”

“Time to stage a jail-break?” Keith asked, looking at Shiro.

“Yeah. Again.” Shiro stretched a little. “Everyone ready to go?”

Pidge’s grin widened. “Let’s go steal a paladin.”

o.o.o.o.o

“Estás muy linda,” Lance giggled as the Galra pulled the bottle of alcohol away from him, fully drained. His thoughts were actually starting to grow fuzzy, and even the numbness from the drink wasn’t enough to hide the fact that they’d finally spiced up the food enough for him to enjoy the burn. “¿Sabes?”

“Enough gibberish,” the Galra snarled, pushing Lance’s head down against the table. “Are you ready to answer my questions or not?”

“Cualquier cosa para ti,” he laughed. It was a lie, of course, but the Galra didn’t know that, seeing as none of them could even understand what he was saying. It didn’t matter _what_ he said, so long as he kept his tone somewhere in the realm of infuriating.

“Ugh.”

“Hey, hey, do you have any more of the spicy goo?” Lance asked, and saw the Galra perk up as he finally started speaking a recognizable language again. “It’s been so long since I had something spicy, ya know, so I’m like hella craving now.”

The Galra blinked in confusion. “What?”

Lance gestured at the bottle of red powder. “The capsaicin. That last plate was actually at the perfect level of spice, yeah? Not too hot, not too bland. Just right. Like Goldilocks!”

The Galra inhaled slowly. “Are you attempting to say that you haven’t so much as _felt_ the amount of capsaicin we have thus far fed you, despite the fact that most would be dead three times over by now?”

“What can I say? I like my food like I like my music: hot and spicy,” he giggled again.

Lance wondered if he looked like as much of a mess as he felt. He felt too hot in the chest, like his joints were made of rubber, like his head was full of oily cotton, like his balance was twenty degrees to the side. He felt drunk, and he didn’t like it.

“Take him back to the cells,” the Galra growled. “We’ll ensure that the next round lives up to your expectations, _paladin_.”

“Lookin’ forward to it, babe.” Lance winked and laughed as the guards came in to get him and the Galra in charge stormed out.

He stumbled a little on his way back to the cells, the alcohol finally hitting his system enough to make him start getting clumsy.

“Fuck,” he hissed as the guards tightened their grips warningly on his upper arms. He spoke up, “Oi, I’m drunk, not dying.”

“You should be dead already,” one of them muttered.

“And I feel the same way about you, but I’m afraid that—” Lance cut himself off as they shoved him roughly into his cell. He groaned as he slammed painfully against the wall. “Assholes.”

“Shut up,” the guard growled.

Lance almost responded, but something interrupted.

Something wonderful and beautiful.

Music over the ship-wide speaker system.

_“DANZA KUDURO!”_

Lance grinned. “Pidge.”

He didn’t have a weapon or armor or anything else that could have been helpful, so he started dancing to the music instead, even as the guards lowered their weapons at him.

“I haven’t done anything,” he told them, utterly truthful. “Except dance!”

o.o.o.o.o

They found him like that, Hunk and Allura leading the charge into the room. The two of them didn’t seem to know what to think of the fact that Lance was dancing while there were guards training their weapons on him. They did as they were trained, though, and immediately took out both.

“Hunk!” Lance said cheerily as his best friend shot off the lock to the cell. He ran out and into a hug, then spun to face Allura and grabbed her hand. “¡Princesa! ¡Baila conmigo!”

Allura looked down at him, face blank. “What?”

“Not now, Lance, we don’t have time,” Hunk told him, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Keith’s getting your armor and bayard.”

“Hunk, babe, I don’t think I’ll be able to use them,” Lance said, patting his friend on the arm. “I’m having trouble seeing.”

“What?” Allura asked, sounding far too worried for the situation. “Is it serious? Do you have a head injury? Is it the poison?”

“Just beer goggles, babe,” Lance said, and then followed up with a slightly drunken giggle. He pushed away from Hunk and over to Allura. “Can I play with your hair when we get back to the castle? You have really nice hair and I can’t see it right now 'cause it's under the helmet but it always looks so _soft_ , and—”

“Okay, you are _drunk_ ,” Hunk said, pulling him away from Allura. “You can ask Allura about her hair later. Right now, we gotta go. Can I do a fireman carry or are you gonna throw up?”

Lance bounced on his toes for a moment, thinking. “I’m… I can walk?”

“Fast enough to avoid the Galra?” Hunk asked, and then sighed as Lance’s attention wandered. “I’m going to carry you unless you feel nauseous.”

“I’m fine, but can we pick up the caps… the spicy stuff? My head is swimming, but dude, it’s been _so fucking long_ since I had food that actually tasted like something. Everything is so bland in space.” Lance made a slightly awkward noise as Hunk lifted him up onto his shoulder in a fireman's carry. “Please don’t let them shoot my ass. It’s a very pretty ass and I’d like to keep it that way.”

“You have _no_ filter right now, dude,” Hunk said. “I’ll keep your ass safe, Lance.”

“You’re a real bro.”

“I know.”

“Paladins, let’s _go!_ ”

o.o.o.o.o

Hunk got the damn capsaicin, and they blew up the base.

(Shiro may or may not have stolen the remaining alcohol, with the excuse that it had been a long while since he’d had any, as flavorless as this looked.)

o.o.o.o.o

Lance was draped over the couch, and Allura had deigned to sit next to him and allow him to play with her hair. He’d already braided several sections, including some variant he called a fishtail.

“It’s so _soft_ ,” he whispered, running his fingers through the remaining unbraided section, “como una nube.”

“Lance, I don’t know what that means,” she reminded him again, to no avail.

(“Lance tends to switch languages sometimes when the alcohol hits, because it makes him stop feeling like he _needs_ to make sure everyone understands him. Like, he stops caring, basically?” Hunk tried to explain. “He feels more comfortable switching than not, since he switches at home a lot, and sometimes things just feel more accurate in one language than the other, even if the words and meaning are identical, or if he just wants to show off or doesn’t want people to understand him or just _feels_ like it, and… honestly, I’d be doing the same thing if I was as confident about this sort of thing, and if people were as likely to parse through Samoan as they are Spanish.”)

Allura stiffened as Lance pressed his face into her hair and back, and wrapped her in a hug. “Your hair is really nice.”

“Lance, you’re making her uncomfortable,” Hunk said.

“…oh,” Lance said, withdrawing his hands but not getting up. “Sorry, ‘llura. I don’t think I’m picking up on stuff all that well right now.”

He patted her on the shoulder, and yawned audibly.

“Lance, I think it’s time you went to bed,” Hunk said, though he didn’t move to actually push the decision through. “You wanna get up and go? Maybe take a shower?”

“Nah, I’m fine here.” Lance flopped back against the couch, letting his head loll so he could stare at the ceiling. “Don’t feel like walking.”

Allura turned to look at him more fully, and then frowned. “Are you sure you’re alright? I know you said that ethanol’s effects on your species are well-documented, but I’m still worried about the entire idea of recreational usage of toxic substances.”

“You worry too much, ‘llura,” Lance told her, reaching up to try to pat her again, and then dropping his arm when it seemed that he’d have to move to actually reach her. “I’ll be _fine_.”

o.o.o.o.o

“Ooooooow,” Lance whined, pillowing his face in his arms on the kitchen table. “Someone turn down the lights, _please_.”

“This is… a hangover?” Allura asked hesitantly as Keith got the lights on his way out of the room. “What are the symptoms?”

“Nausea, sensitivity to light and sound, lethargy, dry mouth, dizziness, headache…” Pidge trailed off and paused in her typing, thinking. “That covers the most common ones. He’ll be fine soon; he’s young.”

“I see,” Allura said, and sighed. “Well, the Blade of Marmora is coming over to discuss some of the information Pidge gathered over breakfast. I will inform them that Lance is currently recovering from an attempt at torture by poison.”

“Stop _taaaalking_ ,” Lance moaned, burying his face deeper against his arms.

Hunk came in from the kitchen with some high-protein space goo and a steaming cup of something. “Guess who added some of your shiny new capsaicin powder to breakfast?”

“Oh my god, thank you,” Lance said, sitting up to look at the goo. “How spicy? Like, on a scale of white-people mild to even I might cry?”

“I taste-tested and it was enough for me to handle, so moderate,” Hunk told him, pushing the goo closer. “Now eat, you need the protein and grease.”

“There’s grease?”

“I know what I’m doing, Lance.”

“I love you.”

“I know, dude. Eat.”

Lance dug into the goo, actually moaning as he ate.

“Recreational poisoning,” Allura scoffed under her breath. “ _Humans_.”

“Mithridatism,” Pidge reminded her. “And hey, we had to evolve our way into surviving our environment _somehow_. With all the poisons on Earth, we inevitably had to develop some kind of resistance to the common, not-immediately-lethal ones.”

“Immunity through gradual exposure is _not_ something that most of the universe sees as a sane manner of dealing with toxic substances,” Allura grumbled as the doors to the dining area slid open, and two Galra walked in, escorted by Keith. “Ah. Kolivan, Antok. Welcome.”

Kolivan nodded. “Princess.”

“Hey, it’s you guys,” Lance waved lazily with his spoon. “How’s it hanging?”

“…how is _what_ hanging?” Kolivan asked carefully.

“Ignore him,” Pidge advised.

“Lance was captured during yesterday’s mission, and they attempted to poison him during an interrogation. He’s still recovering.” Allura gestured for the two to take seats. “Please.”

“It wasn’t poison; it was alcohol. I got _drunk_ , that’s all.” Lance rolled his eyes, then gestured at his own breakfast, eyeing Kolivan and Antok. “Want some? It finally has flavor.”

“Lance!” Allura snapped immediately.

“…what? I’m being nice. Always offer food to guests and whatnot.” Lance, at least, seemed genuinely confused.

“What part of ‘most species consider spicy food a deadly poison’ is so hard to remember?” Keith asked from where he was leaning against the wall. “Don’t offer the spicy stuff to the aliens.”

“…right.”

Kolivan glanced at Allura, questioning.

She shrugged, her own tiredness surely visible. “Humans apparently choose to recreationally consume certain poisons that their bodies have developed resistance to.”

“ _Why?"_ Kolivan asked, aghast.

“Because it tastes good?” Lance said, taking a large, obvious bite of his food.

“There’s some C18H27NO3 in there,” Allura told them. “And last night, he consumed well over one hundred milliliters of ethanol, though it was diluted in several glasses of water at the time.”

Kolivan looked appropriately horrified, in Allura’s opinion, and Antok’s face may have been hidden behind a mask, but his body language was just as shocked.

“He’d need to drink about twice that to pass out,” Pidge told them, not looking up from her laptop. “And maybe half that again in order to be at risk of death.”

“Eeeeey,” Lance raised his still-steaming drink into the air in a mock toast. “Imma survive everything.”

“Finish your food, dumbass,” Pidge looked up in order to stick out her tongue at him.

“You want some?” Lance offered up the spoon, much as he had to the Galra. “Keith? What about you?”

“I already ate, and I tend to go for something milder than what Hunk made for you anyway.”

“Ugh, I’ll pass. I’m not a fan of spicy food.” Pidge made a face. “Like, at all.”

Lance snickered. “Still got that baby palate, gringa?”

“I will _cut you_ , hangover or not,” Pidge warned him, one eyebrow raised. “Besides, _you_ got white-girl wasted last night.”

“First of all, it took me like seven shots of space tequila to get to that point, so my tolerance isn’t all that bad,” Lance said, bringing up one hand to tick off his points on his fingers. “Second of all, I didn’t even _agree_ to the alcohol I was drinking. Third of all, I passed through loud and dancing buzzed first. Fourth of all? Better to be white-girl wasted than being, like, an angry drunk. Or a sad drunk, can you imagine being a sad drunk? I don’t want to be a sad drunk, Pidge.”

“I mean, your entire existence looks pretty sad to me,” Pidge said.

“Ow,” Lance put a hand to his chest in mock offence. “That hurts, you little gremlin. Right in the heart.”

“I don’t care.”

“You wanna fucking go?”

“All I have to do is shout and your hangover’s gonna do the rest of the work for me.”

Lance paused, considering. “Postponed, then. My head hurts enough already.”

“Then stop talking and start eating, asshole.” Pidge snorted, going back to her computer.

Lance stuck out his tongue at her, but did as she suggested.

“ _Humans_ ,” Allura muttered under her breath.

**Author's Note:**

> In this story, I am Matt. I can barely handle a dash of table pepper before I'm uncomfortable. It's kind of pathetic. (PS - Pidge's warning there was because Lance teased about her age, not because of the 'gringa' commentary. I only realized afterwards that it might come across differently.)
> 
> I did do some research to try to figure out what the actual quantity of capsaicin in a Carolina Reaper was, but all I could find was what Hunk found, and then did some research on pepper spray and did the math.
> 
> I deliberately avoided using pronouns for the interrogator, but one or two might have slipped by? I kept envisioning a female Galra interrogator, but we've seen precisely zero female Galra so... IDK I just tried to avoid gendering the interrogator after I started feeling weird about it.
> 
> I wrote this because I wanted to write a purely Voltron fic that focused on a really dumb thing that humans are, for whatever reason, better at than other species. It's not even a super useful thing, it's just a thing. I say "purely Voltron" because there's absolutely a chilihead Lance scene coming up in the Naruto/Voltron crossover.


End file.
